BENEVOLENCE OR INTERVENTION? SPOTLIGHTING U.S. SOFT POWER

[Say_What]

<clips>

While the U.S imperial presence has emerged as a more or less acknowledged fact of the 21st century, popular references to U.S. power often gloss over a complex, amorphous system of organization and domination.1 What debate and discussion of empire there is in the United States has been almost entirely confined to its most pronounced, military expressions. Yet in terms of the actual administration and continuation of the current global order, the military occupation of foreign territories is looking more and more like an Achilles’ heel. And while the Bush Administration is clearly not averse to deploying “hard power,” it has also expanded key civil and political mechanisms—“soft power”—in order to safeguard U.S. interests worldwide.

The “promotion of democracy,” for example, emerged as a central expression of U.S. soft power during the Reagan Administration. In 1983, Reagan launched the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), with the mandate to “foster the infrastructure of democracy” around the world. “I just decided that this nation, with its heritage of Yankee traders, ought to do a little selling of the principles of democracy,” Reagan explained in a speech at the Endowment’s inauguration.2 Since then, the NED and other democracy-promoting governmental and nongovernmental institutions have intervened successfully on behalf of “democracy”—actually a very particular form of low-intensity democracy chained to pro-market economics—in countries from Nicaragua to the Philippines, Ukraine to Haiti, overturning unfriendly “authoritarian” governments (many of which the United States had previously supported) and replacing them with handpicked pro-market allies.

Over the past 20 years, the “Yankee traders” at the NED and elsewhere have expanded “democracy promotion” into a multibillion-dollar global industry. As President George W. Bush correctly pointed out to members of the International Republican Institute (IRI, a key U.S. democracy-promoting institution) last year, “the business of promoting democratic change” is a “growth industry.”3

Like many other industries in the United States and Europe—and despite passionate rhetoric praising the efficiency of unregulated markets—the “democracy business” is highly subsidized. In 1980, the United States and the European Union each spent $20 million on democracy-related foreign aid. By 2001, this had risen to $571 million and $392 million, respectively. In 2006 the United States is projected to spend $2 billion on “democracy assistance,” while in 2003—the latest figures available—the EU spent $3.5 billion.4

http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2668

[Jcrowley]

1. K&R n/t

[crickets]

2. Selling principles, indeed. Selling them off. nt

:dem:

[Judi Lynn]

3. Oh, no! "“I just decided that this nation, with its heritage of Yankee traders, ought to do a little

selling of the principles of democracy."

Oh, jeez. That sweet, benign, kindly old grandfather image really appeared to blindside a lot of unsuspecting Americans, didn't it? My God. They never saw it coming. Right-wing tools threw their pointy caps in the air in jubilation that they'd bagged such a sweet old patriot as their President.

You don't HAVE to be the world's greatest actor to fool really stupid people, do you? He put the U.S. agression toward Latin America and the Caribbean into a higher gear, to the desperate grief of so many, many suffering people.

It's good to learn there's a chance US policy is going to be examined and discussed publicly with more and more honesty coming up soon.